[edtech] The MIT OpenCourseWare Update -- Vol. 3, Issue 2
ocw-mail@MIT.EDU
ocw-mail at MIT.EDU
Fri Feb 25 13:04:18 EST 2005
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The MIT OpenCourseWare Update: February 2005
A Monthly E-mail Newsletter for Users
and Friends of MIT OpenCourseWare
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The February 2005 MIT OpenCourseWare Update Contains:
1. Content Partners Offer Users Unique Learning Tools
2. Foundations, Donors Fuel MIT OCW Success
3. Digging Deeper: Course 3.46
4. A Frequently Asked Question
5. Comments
6. Newsletter Available Online at
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/newsletter.htm>http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/newsletter.htm
1. Content Partners Offer Users Unique Learning Tools
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<http://ocw.mit.edu>MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) has several content
partners who are providing users translations of MIT OCW courses and
other tools to improve their learning experience.
<http://www.universia.net/>Universia.net is a consortium of more than
800 colleges and universities in Latin America, Spain and Portugal
that has translated a sample of MIT OCW courses into Spanish and
Portuguese. Headquartered in Madrid, Spain, Universia has now
translated more than 90 courses and continues to publish new
translations, including courses such as
<http://mit.ocw.universia.net/21A.219/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-219Law-and-SocietySpring2003/CourseHome/index.htm>Course
21A.219 -- Law and Society, Spring 2003 in Spanish, and
<http://www.universiabrasil.net/mit/curso.jsp?codcurso=87>Course
9.641J -- Introduction to Neural Networks, Fall 2002 in Portuguese.
<http://www.core.org.cn/en/index.htm>Chinese Open Resources for
Education (CORE) is a consortium of Chinese colleges and universities
that will translate all of MIT OCW's courses into Chinese, and offer
open and free access to the course materials from Chinese educators,
over the course of the next five years. Thus far, CORE offers two
complete, translated MIT courses, including
<http://www.core.org.cn/Ocw_cn/Mathematics/18-06Linear-AlgebraFall2002/CourseHome/index.htm>Course
18.06 -- Linear Algebra, Fall 2002 and
<http://www.core.org.cn/Ocw_cn/Mathematics/18-085Mathematical-Methods-for-Engineers-IFall2002/CourseHome/index.htm>Course
18.085 -- Mathematical Methods for Engineers I, Fall 2002.
<http://mit.ols.usu.edu/index_html>Open Learning Support (OLS) is a
joint MIT OCW/ Utah State University research project focused on
building "social software" that enables informal learning communities
to form around existing open educational content. The fundamental
premise of OLS is that full educational opportunity requires a user
to have social access to other human beings who can answer questions
and provide support.
2. Foundations, Donors Fuel MIT OCW Success
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MIT OCW would not be possible with the generous financial support of
the Hewlett and the Mellon Foundations, in addition to several MIT
alumni who have made financial donations to help us publish 915
courses.
The <http://www.hewlett.org/Default.htm>Willam and Flora Hewlett
Foundation has generously supported MIT OCW financially through the
initial pilot phase and continues to to provide funding as MIT OCW
works toward full publication of all of MIT's courses. Headquartered
in Menlo Park, CA, the foundation concentrates its resources on
activities in conflict resolution, education, environment, performing
arts, population, and U.S.-Latin American relations.
MIT OCW has also received wonderful financial support from the
<http://www.mellon.org/>Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The New York,
NY-based foundation is active in higher education, museums and art
conservation, performing arts, population, conservation and the
environment, and public affairs, and is committed to the concept of
open sharing of educational resources and tools, such as MIT OCW.
In addition,
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/ocwdonor.htm>MIT alumnus
Jon Gruber has donated $1 million to the MIT OCW project. Gruber's
gift will support the development and open publication of course
materials in the
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/index.htm>Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - his undergraduate
major - and also in MIT's various programs in the visual arts.
Voluntary donations by MIT alumni and our users is a wonderful
endorsement of what this project hopes to achieve long-term -
promoting open sharing of information and knowledge that will
democratize information and make the world a better place. If you
choose to support MIT OCW financially, please make your check payable
to "MIT" and enclose a note indicating that the contribution is for
the OpenCourseWare Fund, #4021100. You can mail your check to:
Recording Secretary
MIT Office of the Treasurer
238 Main Street, Suite 200
Cambridge, MA 02142
You can support donate through the <http://web.mit.edu/giving/>Giving
to MIT Web site at http://web.mit.edu/giving. Utilize the site's
secure, online giving form at
https://alum.mit.edu/giftform/GiftMain.dyn. When filling out the
form, the MIT OCW fund number is 4021100, and the official fund name
is "OpenCourseWare."
3. Digging Deeper: Course 3.46
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MIT's <http://dmse.mit.edu/index.html>Department of Materials Science
and Engineering is known as the world-wide leader of its field, based
on its academic program, its highly regarded faculty, and the high
caliber of its students.
There are currently
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/index.htm>36
courses from MIT's DMSE available on MIT OCW, including this month's
featured course, Professor Lionel Kimerling's
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/3-46Spring2004/CourseHome/index.htm>Course
3.46 - Photonic Materials and Devices, Spring 2004, which explores
covers the theory, design, fabrication and applications of photonic
materials and devices. After a survey of optical materials design
for semiconductors, dielectrics and polymers, the course examines ray
optics, electromagnetic optics and guided wave optics; physics of
light-matter interactions; and device design principles of LEDs,
lasers, photodetectors, modulators, fiber and waveguide
interconnects, optical filters, and photonic crystals. Device
processing topics include crystal growth, substrate engineering, thin
film deposition, etching and process integration for dielectric,
silicon and compound semiconductor materials.
Professor Kimerling offers a comprehensive set of
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/3-46Spring2004/LectureNotes/index.htm>Lecture
Notes, on such topics as
<http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/3-46Spring2004/0479058E-8329-41B6-8258-7B41AE40B2B1/0/ray_opts_04.pdf>Ray
Optics, Electromagnetic Optics, Guided Wave Optics,
<http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/3-46Spring2004/27E849E0-CE8E-4DB9-93A0-D0CC95D352D4/0/detect_lec_1_04.pdf>Semiconductor
Photo Detectors, and
<http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/3-46Spring2004/16158370-70A0-40AC-9D56-DD5C77387B49/0/lasers_lec_04.pdf>Laser
Diodes.
Course 3.46 also offers a rich set of
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/3-46Spring2004/Assignments/index.htm>Problem
Sets, and
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/3-46Spring2004/Exams/index.htm>six
past quizzes along with a final exam, featuring such mind-benders as
the following question: "Explain the differences in the gain spectrum
between a double heterostructure laser and a quantum well laser.
Which is more desirable and why?" Whew! Let the self-learning begin!
The course also offers a
<http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Materials-Science-and-Engineering/3-46Spring2004/Projects/index.htm>guide
to the design process, including four sample design reviews, and a
sample of Professor Kimerling's comments on the design review process.
4. A Frequently Asked Question
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QUESTION: Can I download MIT OCW videos to my computer for viewing off-line?
ANSWER: Most of the video that MIT OCW provides is in a Real Video
format delivered through streaming servers. Our goal in providing
video in this format (in multiple bitrates) is to enable users with a
variety of Internet connections to sample MIT OCW video offerings
with a common browser plug-in without having to download large media
files. Users are able to download our streaming video file if you
prefer to play these files off-line. There are two typical URL
structures for links to MIT OCW video lecture delivered in a
streaming format:
OCW video files stored on the Akamai network will have URLs that look
something like this
http://mfile.akamai.com/7870/rm/mitstorage.download.akamai.com/7870/18/18.06/videolectures/strang-1806-lec01-26aug1999-220k.rm
If you want to download this file and play it off-line, use the
following URL -- the only difference is in the first part of the URL:
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/18/18.06/videolectures/strang-1806-lec01-26aug1999-220k.rm
This same basic approach will work for all of the MIT OCW streaming
videos stored on the Akamai network. Simply find the URL to the
streaming media, and replace the first part of the URL
http://mfile.akamai.com/7870/rm/mitstorage.download.akamai.com/7870
with http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870
OCW video files stored on the Internet Archive (such as those for
"Course 18.03 -- Differential Equations, Spring 2004") will have URLs
that look something like this:
http://www.archive.org/stream/mitocw.18.03.f03.videolectures/mit-ocw-18.03-lec1-05feb2003-220k.rm
To download this file and play it off-line, use the following URL --
the only difference is that you replace "stream" with "download":
http://www.archive.org/download/mitocw.18.03.f03.videolectures/mit-ocw-18.03-lec1-05feb2003-220k.rm
This same basic approach will work for all the MIT OCW streaming
videos stored on the Internet Archive network. Simply find the URL to
the streaming media file and replace the word "stream" with the word
"download."
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<http://ocw.mit.edu>MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is a large-scale,
Web-based publishing initiative with the goal of providing free,
searchable access to MIT course materials for educators, students,
and individual learners around the world. These materials are offered
in a single, searchable structure spanning all of MIT's academic
disciplines, and include uniform metadata about the contents of the
individual subject sites.
"The MIT OpenCourseWare Update" welcomes your feedback and
suggestions about this newsletter and the MIT OCW Web site. Please
send your feedback to Jon Paul Potts, MIT OCW Communications Manager,
at <mailto:jpotts at mit.edu>jpotts at mit.edu. Our mailing address is MIT
OpenCourseWare, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 9-213, Cambridge, MA
02139.
MIT does not share subscribers' email addresses and will not send
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